Klobuchar: “Trump Gets No Credit” On Biofuel “Vague Promises”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar toured REG Biofuels in Newton, Iowa, on Friday and spent some time talking about the importance to defending the biofuel industry and its role in protecting a rural way of life.

“This isn’t just about one farmer, it’s not even just about one ethanol plant,” Klobuchar explained. “It is a big part of the economy in Iowa; it’s what allowed new restaurants to open in rural areas and what allows small community banks to keep going and what allows people to keep their homes and raise their kids in rural areas. I always believed that kids who grow up in rural Iowa, or rural Minnesota should be able to stay there and this new industry is a big piece of this.”

Klobuchar talked about Friday’s biofuel news before she headed inside to get a look at REG’s facilities and talk about how the Trump administration’s biofuel policy has impact their business.

Friday’s Biofuel News

Reports from D.C. on Friday showed the terms of a deal agreed to by the White House, EPA and USDA to help the biofuel industries.

Klobuchar also talked about Trump’s continued cycle of visiting with farmers and farm-state senators and governors, agreeing to a deal, and going back to D.C. just to have big oil interests undo the negotiations and promises he made.

“President Trump does not get credit for offering a vague promise to try to undo the damage his administration has done to the biofuels industry and rural economies across the Midwest,” Klobuchar said. “Even if the president could be counted on to follow through on this promise, I believe it will end up being far too little, far too late.”

Impeachment Discussion

Impeachment proceedings have developed at a rapid pace during this initial inquiry, with documents being discovered and a string of texts between U.S. diplomats being released late last week.

“Just on Thursday, we got evidence of the texts showing these diplomats trying to deal with what they’re hearing from the White House, with one of them clearly sounding the alarm on what this was, which was trying to get dirt for a political election and using that as leverage to get something from a country and using that in exchange for foreign aid — that’s illegal,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar explained that she hopes to see people who worked for Trump cooperate and be willing to be honest and put the country before their party, with hopes of making the case to Republican senators.

“What you’re going to see is evidence coming out, I think you’re gonna see people coming forward who used to work in the White House. The House’s job is to hear all that evidence, to make that case, not only to the members in the House, but also we hope to the American people, that some of this will be public, and then bring it over to the Senate,” Klobuchar said.

She also explained that she doesn’t expect the discovery process to slow down anytime soon.

“I think there’s going to be breaking news all the time on this. This is a major, major investigation and a major constitutional responsibility, but I think we have to be very clear on what this is about at its core,” Klobuchar said. “You cannot put the interests, personal, business or political, of yourself as president in front of the country’s.”

The Senator invoked the constitutional convention on Friday when discussing the importance of finding out the full scope of foreign dealings on behalf of the President, noting that founders were aware of the potential power-abuse of the office.

“James Madison made it very clear in the constitutional convention that the reason he wanted to have a provision for impeachment in the constitution is because, in his words, he feared that a president could betray the trust of the American people for a foreign power. To me, that’s what this is.”